- Published on
Farewell Fort Collins!
Blink and you almost miss it.
The pretty grid of streets becomes farmland in less than fifteen minutes.
Hit the freeway.
The mountains recede in the rear view mirror and,
Welcome to Wyoming!
The land becomes flatter
Until there is nothing but flat green to the distant horizon.
Welcome to Nebraska!
Mother Mary at the border.
Endless fields punctuated by giant horizontal, triangular sprinklers
Large metal silos and water towers
Herds of cattle
The occasional horse.
Trains snake their way along tracks in the distance.
Clusters of trees denote houses. Long dusty driveways trail from the house and run parallel to the freeway.
State-sponsored rest-stops with spotless restrooms and vending machines selling candy and soda.
Funky tasting water from the water fountains.
Outside, wind-blown picnic tables sit empty
Signs detail generic area histories.
The Native Americans...
The white “pioneers” and “settlers” ...
Electricity
“Progress”
Imagine traveling through here before asphalt and gas stations and water towers?!
Drive past Lincoln: Capital of Nebraska. President of the USA. Memorial in Washington. Library block and blue “house” at my high school in Sydney (Sydney, Australia - not Sidney, Wyoming).
We zip down the freeway.
Who organizes these endless fields? Switches on the sprinklers? Surveys the land?
Who creates the timetables of those long trains that chug through the landscape?
Or can sometimes be seen sitting still in the middle of nowhere. Where is the driver?
The network of gas stations. The people who staff them.
The road. The road. The road.
Puffy white clouds create patterns of sun and shade over the fields
Head towards darker clouds, and then, hard driving rain on the windshield.
Pass through.
More road, more fields, more clouds.
Wire fences and tilled land as far as the eye can see
Wide open spaces.
Road kill. Religious billboards. And gas stations.
Signs for Kansas City (everything’s up t’ date in...!)
The bridge with the monument and winged horses.
The bridge with the metal and corrugated iron sailing ships.
Welcome to Iowa!
Immediately after the border, the landscape begins to undulate.
We have been on the road for 9 hours.
We pull into Minden, Iowa.
(Min-den? Or Mind-en?)
Outside the Country General Store, a sun-faded sign
You are stomping into Minden!
With a couple standing in a bucket of grapes. There are cut-out spaces for heads and hands. Touristy. Gimmicky. Hilarious.
Travel down the road.
A cemetery lined with red, white, and blue flags.
It seems almost festive, all that color and movement
Flags waving in the wind.
Follow the road and arrows pointing to the motel and
“Central Business District”
Our road and two others converge on the war memorial
A sculptured
Over-sized American eagle, bronzed and bedecked in stars
Sternly stares down Main St
The one-storey motel, ex-legion’s club, community hall, post office, bank, and
Church
All look on in respect.
Further east down the road
A meat-packing and processing facility is bordered by the drug store,
The grocery store sits opposite.
Neat houses with trim lawns and brightly colored pin wheels stand almost regimentally down the street.
West of the memorial -
The fire station/mayor’s office
And more houses
Beyond Main Street, the world is fields of green and metal silos.
The motel is currently staffed by an obese older man.
He breathes heavily. The manager is at the movies with her boyfriend.
He takes us down to our room.
Here you go. Leave that switch on, it’s connected to the fridge. Shower in there. We have cable. 450 channels. We have wifi, I think. Not sure how to work it. I don’t have a computer. Enjoy your stay.
He shuffles back down the hallway. The effort is immense.
We seek out dinner. The grocery store is closed. The manager has returned. Marin. She is Egyptian. How did she end up in Minden, Iowa?
Marin of Minden offers frozen dinners - Salisbury steak with corn and mash.
The hippies, formerly of Fort Collins, who have cooked farmer’s market meals seven days a week for the past six months, try not to recoil rudely in fear of microwave food stuffs.
One dollar only! I make no profit!
We smile. Thank you, but I’m a vegetarian.
She looks at me curiously, processing this foreign term, vegetarian.
Ah! I have olives! And crackers? It’s Sunday. Everything closed! But, gas station, just down the road!
Apologetic thank you’s, and we head back to the car.
I love you! Marin calls out.
I eat granola for dinner. Damn hippies!
In the morning, it’s back on the road.
Count the road kill. Count the religious billboards. Count the gas stations.
The big move east,
We’re on our way.
Blink and you almost miss it.
The pretty grid of streets becomes farmland in less than fifteen minutes.
Hit the freeway.
The mountains recede in the rear view mirror and,
Welcome to Wyoming!
The land becomes flatter
Until there is nothing but flat green to the distant horizon.
Welcome to Nebraska!
Mother Mary at the border.
Endless fields punctuated by giant horizontal, triangular sprinklers
Large metal silos and water towers
Herds of cattle
The occasional horse.
Trains snake their way along tracks in the distance.
Clusters of trees denote houses. Long dusty driveways trail from the house and run parallel to the freeway.
State-sponsored rest-stops with spotless restrooms and vending machines selling candy and soda.
Funky tasting water from the water fountains.
Outside, wind-blown picnic tables sit empty
Signs detail generic area histories.
The Native Americans...
The white “pioneers” and “settlers” ...
Electricity
“Progress”
Imagine traveling through here before asphalt and gas stations and water towers?!
Drive past Lincoln: Capital of Nebraska. President of the USA. Memorial in Washington. Library block and blue “house” at my high school in Sydney (Sydney, Australia - not Sidney, Wyoming).
We zip down the freeway.
Who organizes these endless fields? Switches on the sprinklers? Surveys the land?
Who creates the timetables of those long trains that chug through the landscape?
Or can sometimes be seen sitting still in the middle of nowhere. Where is the driver?
The network of gas stations. The people who staff them.
The road. The road. The road.
Puffy white clouds create patterns of sun and shade over the fields
Head towards darker clouds, and then, hard driving rain on the windshield.
Pass through.
More road, more fields, more clouds.
Wire fences and tilled land as far as the eye can see
Wide open spaces.
Road kill. Religious billboards. And gas stations.
Signs for Kansas City (everything’s up t’ date in...!)
The bridge with the monument and winged horses.
The bridge with the metal and corrugated iron sailing ships.
Welcome to Iowa!
Immediately after the border, the landscape begins to undulate.
We have been on the road for 9 hours.
We pull into Minden, Iowa.
(Min-den? Or Mind-en?)
Outside the Country General Store, a sun-faded sign
You are stomping into Minden!
With a couple standing in a bucket of grapes. There are cut-out spaces for heads and hands. Touristy. Gimmicky. Hilarious.
Travel down the road.
A cemetery lined with red, white, and blue flags.
It seems almost festive, all that color and movement
Flags waving in the wind.
Follow the road and arrows pointing to the motel and
“Central Business District”
Our road and two others converge on the war memorial
A sculptured
Over-sized American eagle, bronzed and bedecked in stars
Sternly stares down Main St
The one-storey motel, ex-legion’s club, community hall, post office, bank, and
Church
All look on in respect.
Further east down the road
A meat-packing and processing facility is bordered by the drug store,
The grocery store sits opposite.
Neat houses with trim lawns and brightly colored pin wheels stand almost regimentally down the street.
West of the memorial -
The fire station/mayor’s office
And more houses
Beyond Main Street, the world is fields of green and metal silos.
The motel is currently staffed by an obese older man.
He breathes heavily. The manager is at the movies with her boyfriend.
He takes us down to our room.
Here you go. Leave that switch on, it’s connected to the fridge. Shower in there. We have cable. 450 channels. We have wifi, I think. Not sure how to work it. I don’t have a computer. Enjoy your stay.
He shuffles back down the hallway. The effort is immense.
We seek out dinner. The grocery store is closed. The manager has returned. Marin. She is Egyptian. How did she end up in Minden, Iowa?
Marin of Minden offers frozen dinners - Salisbury steak with corn and mash.
The hippies, formerly of Fort Collins, who have cooked farmer’s market meals seven days a week for the past six months, try not to recoil rudely in fear of microwave food stuffs.
One dollar only! I make no profit!
We smile. Thank you, but I’m a vegetarian.
She looks at me curiously, processing this foreign term, vegetarian.
Ah! I have olives! And crackers? It’s Sunday. Everything closed! But, gas station, just down the road!
Apologetic thank you’s, and we head back to the car.
I love you! Marin calls out.
I eat granola for dinner. Damn hippies!
In the morning, it’s back on the road.
Count the road kill. Count the religious billboards. Count the gas stations.
The big move east,
We’re on our way.
- Published on
Fort Collins. Photo by Tim O'Hara
I arrived in a snowstorm
The thermometer reading -10C (14F)
The trees were bare, the fields brown
I was stressed and tired and sick
From almost a year of waiting
To be with my love
And finally, I was here.
Once upon a time
People came to Colorado for healing
The mountain air prescribed as a curative for
Asthma and anxiety and neuroses of the soul.
After London, I needed healing.
Fort Collins was not in The Plan.
But providence/luck/fortune/life
Bought me here
And the rocky mountains did their job
Along with the kind souls encountered
Perhaps London was a dream. And Sydney another lifetime.
In just the past six months,
My love and I were married
I performed in my first Shakespeare
Priced row upon row of vintage books
Planted peas and potatoes and tiny slender leeks and
Harvested buckets full of greens
We played board games and card games and made sense of puzzles
We watched our way through seasons of HBO hits, and
While my love lectured on ethics
I cycled for miles, in sun, in rain, in snow, in biting cold and raging wind.
In the afternoons, I watched over a small human - my time here accounts for two-thirds of his entire life.
I wrote the first draft of my one person show
I borrowed books from the library and made ample use of their inter-library-loan program
Reading books from Wyoming and Oklahoma and Arkansas.
We found ourselves in a circle of friends
Caring and generous and kind and fun
What took two years in London
Took six months in Fort Collins.
It wasn't always easy. I couldn't work. Couldn't drive. Was restricted by extreme cold.
I had bouts of depression and couldn't access counseling services.
But I was with my love
And it was a wonderful adventure.
Now, new adventures await
And we must say goodbye
The college kids. Old Town. Cycling. The breweries. The canyon. The reservoir. The ‘A’ on the hill. Drip coffee. The eerie whoooooooo of the trains rumbling through town. Wolverine and Happy Heart. The Farmer's Market, Jodar Farms and Donoma Farms, The Cave Girl, Mt Everest and Youngs and the Chinese restaurant with the kids behind the counter. OpenStage and CSU and taichi and yoga. The library, the archives, the Poudre River, and the Spring Creek Trail. The park, the lake, running down wide streets.
An entire town is impossible to capture in list form.
We leave when the trees are full of green and
At the tail end of a “wild weather” week -
Thunder storms, and rivers ready to burst their banks, and the threat of tornados.
The sky provides a free light show on our final night, and eventually
It rains.
In the morning, we sweep the floors
Say goodbye to our first place together,
And close the door,
Giving thanks
That we have lived here.
The thermometer reading -10C (14F)
The trees were bare, the fields brown
I was stressed and tired and sick
From almost a year of waiting
To be with my love
And finally, I was here.
Once upon a time
People came to Colorado for healing
The mountain air prescribed as a curative for
Asthma and anxiety and neuroses of the soul.
After London, I needed healing.
Fort Collins was not in The Plan.
But providence/luck/fortune/life
Bought me here
And the rocky mountains did their job
Along with the kind souls encountered
Perhaps London was a dream. And Sydney another lifetime.
In just the past six months,
My love and I were married
I performed in my first Shakespeare
Priced row upon row of vintage books
Planted peas and potatoes and tiny slender leeks and
Harvested buckets full of greens
We played board games and card games and made sense of puzzles
We watched our way through seasons of HBO hits, and
While my love lectured on ethics
I cycled for miles, in sun, in rain, in snow, in biting cold and raging wind.
In the afternoons, I watched over a small human - my time here accounts for two-thirds of his entire life.
I wrote the first draft of my one person show
I borrowed books from the library and made ample use of their inter-library-loan program
Reading books from Wyoming and Oklahoma and Arkansas.
We found ourselves in a circle of friends
Caring and generous and kind and fun
What took two years in London
Took six months in Fort Collins.
It wasn't always easy. I couldn't work. Couldn't drive. Was restricted by extreme cold.
I had bouts of depression and couldn't access counseling services.
But I was with my love
And it was a wonderful adventure.
Now, new adventures await
And we must say goodbye
The college kids. Old Town. Cycling. The breweries. The canyon. The reservoir. The ‘A’ on the hill. Drip coffee. The eerie whoooooooo of the trains rumbling through town. Wolverine and Happy Heart. The Farmer's Market, Jodar Farms and Donoma Farms, The Cave Girl, Mt Everest and Youngs and the Chinese restaurant with the kids behind the counter. OpenStage and CSU and taichi and yoga. The library, the archives, the Poudre River, and the Spring Creek Trail. The park, the lake, running down wide streets.
An entire town is impossible to capture in list form.
We leave when the trees are full of green and
At the tail end of a “wild weather” week -
Thunder storms, and rivers ready to burst their banks, and the threat of tornados.
The sky provides a free light show on our final night, and eventually
It rains.
In the morning, we sweep the floors
Say goodbye to our first place together,
And close the door,
Giving thanks
That we have lived here.
- Published on
This weekend in Sydney, the University of New South Wales volunteer program “Yellow Shirts” celebrated its 25th anniversary. Yellow Shirts are a group of 100+ students who give up their time to help orientate new students, geographically, academically, and socially, arriving at UNSW. Orientation Week, or O-Week, is one of the largest programs of its kind, runs for a full five days from 9am til late, and is filled with activities from campus tours, to jumping castles and giant jenga to clubs and society events and live bands. Volunteers receive extensive training, and become a part of an amazing group of people once referred to as the “sunshine army”.
Seeing the images and stories from the anniversary pop up in my facebook feed made me nostalgic and strangely homesick. Memories of my four years as a Yellow Shirt volunteer pop up in fragmented fashion. Before living in America, before cutting off all my hair, before engagement, before world travel, there was uni, and there was Yellow Shirts.
Squads, OT, double squads, quadruple squad outings, the importance of FAFYing and CWEFLS, and never using terms and abbreviations that outsiders/newcomers wouldn’t understand. Running around late at night at training camp and accidentally bursting into a room where two Muslim volunteers were quietly praying. Rehearsing for the band in the Huts and heading up to the Rege for $5 steaks (before I was a vegetarian...) and card games. Sitting in Coffee Republic whilst the O-Week Coordinator consoled me, above and beyond her duties, because I hadn’t been selected as a squad leader - and how that year I was placed with one of the most amazing people I have ever encountered and how he changed the entire way I looked at leadership. The year it poured with rain and we moved everything inside the Roundhouse, and how one squad provided tarp-covered escorts up the Main Walkway for arriving students. The relationships that formed, the boys I fell in love with. The couples still together, the families born. One day soon there will be second-generation shirts...
Beyond the memories of those four years, reflecting this weekend has reminded me how much that time has shaped me as a person. My time at UNSW was marked by the height of my depression. One volunteer recruiting session, which lasted well into the night, saw me escaping out into the cool night air, and sitting sobbing at the top of main walkway and contemplating if I should just end everything. Despite the pain and grief I was suffering, I look back now and think of my world at UNSW as an extremely happy and productive one.
Volunteering gave me an immense number of skills, practical not only on a CV checklist but in the real world. Talking with strangers, engaging with people across cultures, and barriers of language and age, organizational skills, team work, leadership, problem solving, and event planning. These skills have allowed me to confidently venture out into the world, and directly led to paid employment in three different countries in a variety of fields, including theatre, sustainability, retail, teaching, and running my own business.
Being a Yellow Shirt led me to the Contact Coordinator role, a part-time paid position overseeing the running of an information and referral centre at the university - often referred to as the O-Week outside of O-Week. That job covered my rent and expenses whilst I finished my undergrad, and gave me the skills of managing a team of 100 student volunteers, and overseeing the success of a crucial student service at a time when student services were being reduced, or cut altogether, at universities across Australia.
Beyond the skills, the greatest part of volunteering was the people. Like-minded souls with similar interests, people who pushed my comfort zones and broadened my horizons. They opened my eyes to the world around me, taught me about leadership and teamwork, and the bounds of friendship. My fellow volunteers are among the most wonderful, creative, talented, and lovely folk I have ever encountered. They are now dotted around the globe, and have gone on to be come scientists, doctors, lawyers, analysts, economists, historians, writers, politicians, actors, musicians, journalists, mothers and fathers. I am a lucky soul indeed to be able to count them amongst my friends.
Since becoming a Yellow Shirt, I have volunteered in theaters, bookshops, and on farms. I have learnt to put my hand up for projects, and roles, where there is little or no monetary payment, that have gifted me with friendships, books, food, and impossible-to-price experiences.
I have often joked that working a day job allows me to pay for the experience of volunteering. Those countless volunteer hours, in a variety of programs, not only gave me tangible skills, and a degree, they undeniably shaped who I am. And for that, I am eternally grateful.
Seeing the images and stories from the anniversary pop up in my facebook feed made me nostalgic and strangely homesick. Memories of my four years as a Yellow Shirt volunteer pop up in fragmented fashion. Before living in America, before cutting off all my hair, before engagement, before world travel, there was uni, and there was Yellow Shirts.
Squads, OT, double squads, quadruple squad outings, the importance of FAFYing and CWEFLS, and never using terms and abbreviations that outsiders/newcomers wouldn’t understand. Running around late at night at training camp and accidentally bursting into a room where two Muslim volunteers were quietly praying. Rehearsing for the band in the Huts and heading up to the Rege for $5 steaks (before I was a vegetarian...) and card games. Sitting in Coffee Republic whilst the O-Week Coordinator consoled me, above and beyond her duties, because I hadn’t been selected as a squad leader - and how that year I was placed with one of the most amazing people I have ever encountered and how he changed the entire way I looked at leadership. The year it poured with rain and we moved everything inside the Roundhouse, and how one squad provided tarp-covered escorts up the Main Walkway for arriving students. The relationships that formed, the boys I fell in love with. The couples still together, the families born. One day soon there will be second-generation shirts...
Beyond the memories of those four years, reflecting this weekend has reminded me how much that time has shaped me as a person. My time at UNSW was marked by the height of my depression. One volunteer recruiting session, which lasted well into the night, saw me escaping out into the cool night air, and sitting sobbing at the top of main walkway and contemplating if I should just end everything. Despite the pain and grief I was suffering, I look back now and think of my world at UNSW as an extremely happy and productive one.
Volunteering gave me an immense number of skills, practical not only on a CV checklist but in the real world. Talking with strangers, engaging with people across cultures, and barriers of language and age, organizational skills, team work, leadership, problem solving, and event planning. These skills have allowed me to confidently venture out into the world, and directly led to paid employment in three different countries in a variety of fields, including theatre, sustainability, retail, teaching, and running my own business.
Being a Yellow Shirt led me to the Contact Coordinator role, a part-time paid position overseeing the running of an information and referral centre at the university - often referred to as the O-Week outside of O-Week. That job covered my rent and expenses whilst I finished my undergrad, and gave me the skills of managing a team of 100 student volunteers, and overseeing the success of a crucial student service at a time when student services were being reduced, or cut altogether, at universities across Australia.
Beyond the skills, the greatest part of volunteering was the people. Like-minded souls with similar interests, people who pushed my comfort zones and broadened my horizons. They opened my eyes to the world around me, taught me about leadership and teamwork, and the bounds of friendship. My fellow volunteers are among the most wonderful, creative, talented, and lovely folk I have ever encountered. They are now dotted around the globe, and have gone on to be come scientists, doctors, lawyers, analysts, economists, historians, writers, politicians, actors, musicians, journalists, mothers and fathers. I am a lucky soul indeed to be able to count them amongst my friends.
Since becoming a Yellow Shirt, I have volunteered in theaters, bookshops, and on farms. I have learnt to put my hand up for projects, and roles, where there is little or no monetary payment, that have gifted me with friendships, books, food, and impossible-to-price experiences.
I have often joked that working a day job allows me to pay for the experience of volunteering. Those countless volunteer hours, in a variety of programs, not only gave me tangible skills, and a degree, they undeniably shaped who I am. And for that, I am eternally grateful.
- Published on
View from the stupa (Shambala Mountain Center)
In the canyon
(It used to be “cañon”
From the Spanish
Meaning "tube")
Camp by the river
Tents and tables and a fire
Trees perched impossibly on the sides of cliffs
The smell of dead trees burning and the sight of white wispy
Ash.
Bald rocks with
Tufts of sprouting dry green hair in their crevices
Lichen covered rocks.
Water bubbles and froths
Around water-logged stones
Becoming more water
Coursing down the river
The sound of it
I want to jump in
Knowing it will be freezing
Snow melt
The breeze
Human stillness in the “quiet” of nature
A small black bird bathes in the shallows.
Someone has drawn a large neat spiral into the sandbank
Though the water has eaten the bottom half
Prints of dog paw
Haphazard, excited in the
Wet sand
Evidence of the tide
Golden flecks shimmer
Alluvial dust, fool’s gold
The sparkle of minerals
Restorative cold stone soup
A tiny bug on the paper
Too narrow for a tick
Let it wander
It meanders into the fold of the book
Once a tree
The infintessimal and the infinite
Drive up through the mountains
Wander down to the stupa
Wind and light
Quiet reflection
Write the names of those recently, and long ago,
Dearly departed
In the book in the temple
And hope that their names here
Will make their restless spirits peaceful.
Deer and chipmunks and impossible birds
Sit beneath shady trees and
Bright blue sky
Beside the rushing river
With friends and chatter and see
Human consciousness
Elevating towards love and light
Until the next big bang,
When the universe
Returns to the size of a pin
And the canyon
Is no more
The end.
(It used to be “cañon”
From the Spanish
Meaning "tube")
Camp by the river
Tents and tables and a fire
Trees perched impossibly on the sides of cliffs
The smell of dead trees burning and the sight of white wispy
Ash.
Bald rocks with
Tufts of sprouting dry green hair in their crevices
Lichen covered rocks.
Water bubbles and froths
Around water-logged stones
Becoming more water
Coursing down the river
The sound of it
I want to jump in
Knowing it will be freezing
Snow melt
The breeze
Human stillness in the “quiet” of nature
A small black bird bathes in the shallows.
Someone has drawn a large neat spiral into the sandbank
Though the water has eaten the bottom half
Prints of dog paw
Haphazard, excited in the
Wet sand
Evidence of the tide
Golden flecks shimmer
Alluvial dust, fool’s gold
The sparkle of minerals
Restorative cold stone soup
A tiny bug on the paper
Too narrow for a tick
Let it wander
It meanders into the fold of the book
Once a tree
The infintessimal and the infinite
Drive up through the mountains
Wander down to the stupa
Wind and light
Quiet reflection
Write the names of those recently, and long ago,
Dearly departed
In the book in the temple
And hope that their names here
Will make their restless spirits peaceful.
Deer and chipmunks and impossible birds
Sit beneath shady trees and
Bright blue sky
Beside the rushing river
With friends and chatter and see
Human consciousness
Elevating towards love and light
Until the next big bang,
When the universe
Returns to the size of a pin
And the canyon
Is no more
The end.
- Published on
Come hither Lego.
Warning: The below contains spoilers. All pictures in this post from here.
The Lego Movie is fun, clever, and visually spectacular. It’s one major flaw is its failure to adequately represent, or include, women in its story-telling.
You Can Build It!
In a world whose premise is you can build anything if you only have the imagination, it seems we still can’t build gender equality.
It’s just a movie! Why should we care? Because it has raked in $425 million worldwide, and in the US was the number one film at the box office for three weeks after its initial release, and third in its fourth week. Because media influences both the way we perceive ourselves, and the way in which we frame our world. It is not the be all and end all. Education, family, and a variety of other factors will also come into play. But we cannot deny that media plays an enormous role.
The Lego Movie fails the most basic test of females on screen, the Bechdel test (two or more named female characters, who talk to each other, about something other than a man). While there are more than two named female characters, they never engage with each other (unless the two sentence throw-away lines between WyldStyle and Princess UniKitty constitutes a “conversation”).
The women in the film are representations of outdated stereotypes of women. The Rebel. The Mother. The Perky One. The Demon. The film establishes very quickly that the idea of Lego is play and imagination. In a world where absolutely anything can be built, created, or established, why are women still relegated to these few (tired) roles? Where are the space women? The inventors? Explorers? Sage women? The female heroes who actually get to save the day?
The Lego Movie is fun, clever, and visually spectacular. It’s one major flaw is its failure to adequately represent, or include, women in its story-telling.
You Can Build It!
In a world whose premise is you can build anything if you only have the imagination, it seems we still can’t build gender equality.
It’s just a movie! Why should we care? Because it has raked in $425 million worldwide, and in the US was the number one film at the box office for three weeks after its initial release, and third in its fourth week. Because media influences both the way we perceive ourselves, and the way in which we frame our world. It is not the be all and end all. Education, family, and a variety of other factors will also come into play. But we cannot deny that media plays an enormous role.
The Lego Movie fails the most basic test of females on screen, the Bechdel test (two or more named female characters, who talk to each other, about something other than a man). While there are more than two named female characters, they never engage with each other (unless the two sentence throw-away lines between WyldStyle and Princess UniKitty constitutes a “conversation”).
The women in the film are representations of outdated stereotypes of women. The Rebel. The Mother. The Perky One. The Demon. The film establishes very quickly that the idea of Lego is play and imagination. In a world where absolutely anything can be built, created, or established, why are women still relegated to these few (tired) roles? Where are the space women? The inventors? Explorers? Sage women? The female heroes who actually get to save the day?
women: demonic robots or cat ladies
Women in the World
The four main worlds, Bricksburg, the Wild West, Cloud Cuckoo Land, and the Octan Corporation, of The Lego Movie did portray some women, but women still fail to make up half the population. In the Bricksburg community, just one female is named, Mrs Scratchen-Post. Her defining feature is her parade of cats, because older women without husbands around are OBVIOUSLY cat ladies! At the construction site, we hear many female voices (progression!), however only one is named, Gail the Construction Worker. Her defining feature is that she is “perky”. In the Wild West, females are heard, but not entirely visible. Denzil over at Medium states in her post that women were visible as performers or barmaids, but I missed that entirely. If this is the case, women exist in this world for the benefit of men to watch, or to serve them. In Cloud Cuckoo Land, the Council of Master Builders is inhabited by a crowd of mostly men, and a grand total of three women - Wonder Woman, Princess Unikitty, and WyldStyle. One of these women is not human, but a unicorn/kitten, one is scantily clad and only around for comedic value (invisible space ship! LOLZ!). Women can become leaders, but their presence is the exception, rather than the rule, or even close to standard. Over at the Octan Corporation, the females are represented by the company computer, and Ma, BadCop/GoodCop’s suffering mother. In this evil-looking dark world, women are either subservient, or mothers. Women in leadership positions?! Forget about it.
In the brief portrayal of the human world, women are off-screen voices, a mother and sister whose sole purpose is stop/destroy the fun of the boy’s playful and imaginative world.
The four main worlds, Bricksburg, the Wild West, Cloud Cuckoo Land, and the Octan Corporation, of The Lego Movie did portray some women, but women still fail to make up half the population. In the Bricksburg community, just one female is named, Mrs Scratchen-Post. Her defining feature is her parade of cats, because older women without husbands around are OBVIOUSLY cat ladies! At the construction site, we hear many female voices (progression!), however only one is named, Gail the Construction Worker. Her defining feature is that she is “perky”. In the Wild West, females are heard, but not entirely visible. Denzil over at Medium states in her post that women were visible as performers or barmaids, but I missed that entirely. If this is the case, women exist in this world for the benefit of men to watch, or to serve them. In Cloud Cuckoo Land, the Council of Master Builders is inhabited by a crowd of mostly men, and a grand total of three women - Wonder Woman, Princess Unikitty, and WyldStyle. One of these women is not human, but a unicorn/kitten, one is scantily clad and only around for comedic value (invisible space ship! LOLZ!). Women can become leaders, but their presence is the exception, rather than the rule, or even close to standard. Over at the Octan Corporation, the females are represented by the company computer, and Ma, BadCop/GoodCop’s suffering mother. In this evil-looking dark world, women are either subservient, or mothers. Women in leadership positions?! Forget about it.
In the brief portrayal of the human world, women are off-screen voices, a mother and sister whose sole purpose is stop/destroy the fun of the boy’s playful and imaginative world.
Leading ladies are SEXY!
Leading Ladies
The film boasts two central female characters. Princess UniKitty and WyldStyle. Women have two options here: fluffy sparkle rainbow girl, or punk-goth-angsty girl. The range of role models is overwhelming. We’re being generous if we throw in Wonder Woman, the busty, scantily clad, though mostly silent and absent in this film, cameo. Beyond two throwaway sentences, the women never interact. Princess Unikitty comes from the land of sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows. She is always positive, and when she’s not, she’s fierce and angry. Women can only have two sides: outrageously happy, or a demon.
We learn very quickly that WyldStyle is highly skilled and talented - she initially finds the Piece of Resistance, and rescues the protagonist, Emmett, in a daring and exciting high speed chase. Unfortunately, her skill and bravado ends there. Emmett’s only sees her as “beautiful” - face radiantly lit, hair swirling round her perfect yellow lego head, so beautiful that he cannot even focus on her words. The film reinforces the idea that woman can only be pretty, and it’s ok if a man doesn’t engage with her actual thoughts and words. Once in the Wild West, in order to “blend in”, WyldStyle changes into a busty costume, despite the fact that no other females are dressed in this way. Again, women can only be busty, pretty, and overtly sexualized, even when there is zero need for them to be do.
The animators/story-tellers use these tropes so that audiences (at least adult ones) understand that this is itself a joke, set-up as tongue in cheek, but we never get to see any other side of WyldStyle. She is never given an authoritative voice. That privilege is given to Vitruvius, old man lego, (although voiced by Morgan Freeman, Vitruvius is a yellow/white lego. The presence of one or two black-skinned legos suggests the yellow “regular” legos are representative of caucasion people. Why can’t Vitruvius be black? Because in our world, ultimate status is given to old white men, reinforced in the film by the presence of Dumbledore, Shakespeare, and Gandalf. Which leads to another important question, where are the women of color in the Lego world?).
We discover that WyldStyle has undergone a series of name changes in order to “find” her current persona. The name WyldStyle in itself refers to the fact that she is not a regular female. By dressing in black, dying her hair, and being a rare female master builder, she is not a regular female, she is “wild”, and untamed. WyldStyle only becomes happy with her “real” name, Lucy, and “true self” (which apparently means no longer being an action hero) when a man tells her he likes it. In the end, despite establishing that Lucy and Batman genuinely care for each other, Lucy gives up gives up her love for the “flawed” Batman in order to be with Emmett, the “hero” of the film. Again we see the tired trope of women as objects, in this case a trophy that the male protagonist wins by saving the world. Although established as an exciting, gutsy, and capable women, WyldStyle becomes the object of Emmett’s affections (not for her skill, but her beauty), and once Batman arrives on the scene, fails to offer leadership, new ideas, or anything of substance. Girls can be independent, but once a boy arrives on the scene, their job is to look pretty. The end.
The film boasts two central female characters. Princess UniKitty and WyldStyle. Women have two options here: fluffy sparkle rainbow girl, or punk-goth-angsty girl. The range of role models is overwhelming. We’re being generous if we throw in Wonder Woman, the busty, scantily clad, though mostly silent and absent in this film, cameo. Beyond two throwaway sentences, the women never interact. Princess Unikitty comes from the land of sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows. She is always positive, and when she’s not, she’s fierce and angry. Women can only have two sides: outrageously happy, or a demon.
We learn very quickly that WyldStyle is highly skilled and talented - she initially finds the Piece of Resistance, and rescues the protagonist, Emmett, in a daring and exciting high speed chase. Unfortunately, her skill and bravado ends there. Emmett’s only sees her as “beautiful” - face radiantly lit, hair swirling round her perfect yellow lego head, so beautiful that he cannot even focus on her words. The film reinforces the idea that woman can only be pretty, and it’s ok if a man doesn’t engage with her actual thoughts and words. Once in the Wild West, in order to “blend in”, WyldStyle changes into a busty costume, despite the fact that no other females are dressed in this way. Again, women can only be busty, pretty, and overtly sexualized, even when there is zero need for them to be do.
The animators/story-tellers use these tropes so that audiences (at least adult ones) understand that this is itself a joke, set-up as tongue in cheek, but we never get to see any other side of WyldStyle. She is never given an authoritative voice. That privilege is given to Vitruvius, old man lego, (although voiced by Morgan Freeman, Vitruvius is a yellow/white lego. The presence of one or two black-skinned legos suggests the yellow “regular” legos are representative of caucasion people. Why can’t Vitruvius be black? Because in our world, ultimate status is given to old white men, reinforced in the film by the presence of Dumbledore, Shakespeare, and Gandalf. Which leads to another important question, where are the women of color in the Lego world?).
We discover that WyldStyle has undergone a series of name changes in order to “find” her current persona. The name WyldStyle in itself refers to the fact that she is not a regular female. By dressing in black, dying her hair, and being a rare female master builder, she is not a regular female, she is “wild”, and untamed. WyldStyle only becomes happy with her “real” name, Lucy, and “true self” (which apparently means no longer being an action hero) when a man tells her he likes it. In the end, despite establishing that Lucy and Batman genuinely care for each other, Lucy gives up gives up her love for the “flawed” Batman in order to be with Emmett, the “hero” of the film. Again we see the tired trope of women as objects, in this case a trophy that the male protagonist wins by saving the world. Although established as an exciting, gutsy, and capable women, WyldStyle becomes the object of Emmett’s affections (not for her skill, but her beauty), and once Batman arrives on the scene, fails to offer leadership, new ideas, or anything of substance. Girls can be independent, but once a boy arrives on the scene, their job is to look pretty. The end.
Gail: building progress!
Gail: Building Progress! The Lego Movie 2: Let's Try Again
Women in the Lego world? Cat ladies, mothers, construction workers (only if you’re perky), girlfriends, perky v. demon, rainbow v. goth, and subservient. Not very imaginative. A sequel is already in the works. I only hope that the writers and story-tellers get the Bechdel Test memo and a crash course in feminism 101 before they start writing. In a world where anything is possible, I hope they can start imagining and building lands where women and men play equal roles, or at least where there are more than two female women, who speak to each other at length, about something other than a man.
I believe you can build it, all you need is the imagination.
Women in the Lego world? Cat ladies, mothers, construction workers (only if you’re perky), girlfriends, perky v. demon, rainbow v. goth, and subservient. Not very imaginative. A sequel is already in the works. I only hope that the writers and story-tellers get the Bechdel Test memo and a crash course in feminism 101 before they start writing. In a world where anything is possible, I hope they can start imagining and building lands where women and men play equal roles, or at least where there are more than two female women, who speak to each other at length, about something other than a man.
I believe you can build it, all you need is the imagination.
- Published on
In response to my request to
Veet
Asking them to remove their ads
Purporting that hairiness will turn a woman into a man
My friend wrote about
“The poor girl
With the hair on her upper lip”
Poor
As in tragic, bad, ugly
Because she was born into a society
That deems body hair
On women
Ugly, unwanted, uncool
Unfeminine
I read a book as a child
The story of a baby
From the baby’s perspective
Where
Daddy = hairy
Mummy = smooth
And I thought
Well, I’ll never be a mother
At least not the quintessential one
Because I’m not smooth
I am hairy
And I grew up in a family
Where that was a bad thing
Hair = Ugly
And must be shaved off
Gotten rid of
My body was a place of shame and disgust
This notion reinforced by
Magazines, films, music videos where
Women did not have hair
And those who did
Were Unattractive
Or Hippies or Deviants and Therefore
Socially. Unacceptable.
And for someone who is
Naturally hairy
That is utterly, utterly crushing
It made me nervous to go swimming
Terrified to wear a bikini
“But you’re so skinny! Show off your body!”
I could never say why I was afraid
Being hairy was less than womanly, less than feminine
Less than human
We live in a world
Where there exists a
Multi-billion dollar industry
For the removal of hair
Waxes, razors, lazers
Bleaches
Lotions, creams, gels
Epilators, tweezers
And sprays
To serve the purpose of
“Looking Good”
There was a magazine
In the University Women’s Room
(A safe space for women)
That someone had defaced
By drawing hair on the models
Adding in eyebrow hairs
Underarm hairs
And sprouting pubic hairs
And I thought it was shocking
That someone would do that
Hair was Ugly. Inappropriate.
Distressing.
Let me say this
Because no one ever said it to me
In varying degrees of
Darkness, thickness, and density
Women. Have. Hair.
On our heads
On our legs, on our arms
On our hands
On our knuckles
On our feet
On our bellies
On our lower backs
On our nipples
On our pubic bone
In our underarms
On our upper lips
Sometimes even from the chin
And cheeks.
Women. Have. Hair.
It is not ugly.
It is convention, history, and the desire to control women’s bodies
And what happens in them and on them
That states that hair on women, in particular places, is ugly.
Hairiness does not make you less attractive
Hairiness does not make you a failure at life
Hairiness does not denote how feminine or masculine you are
It exists.
And it is a Woman’s. Personal. Choice.
Whether she wants to get rid of it or not.
Stubble on her legs
Does not make her manly.
Hair on her upper lip
Does not make her ugly, unfeminine, or unworthy
If your judgements on a human being
Go no further than the presence of hair
I ask you to please
Re-assess.
The world is full of far more important things
Worth pulling your hair out for
The end.
For an amazing story about dealing with hair, go here.
Veet
Asking them to remove their ads
Purporting that hairiness will turn a woman into a man
My friend wrote about
“The poor girl
With the hair on her upper lip”
Poor
As in tragic, bad, ugly
Because she was born into a society
That deems body hair
On women
Ugly, unwanted, uncool
Unfeminine
I read a book as a child
The story of a baby
From the baby’s perspective
Where
Daddy = hairy
Mummy = smooth
And I thought
Well, I’ll never be a mother
At least not the quintessential one
Because I’m not smooth
I am hairy
And I grew up in a family
Where that was a bad thing
Hair = Ugly
And must be shaved off
Gotten rid of
My body was a place of shame and disgust
This notion reinforced by
Magazines, films, music videos where
Women did not have hair
And those who did
Were Unattractive
Or Hippies or Deviants and Therefore
Socially. Unacceptable.
And for someone who is
Naturally hairy
That is utterly, utterly crushing
It made me nervous to go swimming
Terrified to wear a bikini
“But you’re so skinny! Show off your body!”
I could never say why I was afraid
Being hairy was less than womanly, less than feminine
Less than human
We live in a world
Where there exists a
Multi-billion dollar industry
For the removal of hair
Waxes, razors, lazers
Bleaches
Lotions, creams, gels
Epilators, tweezers
And sprays
To serve the purpose of
“Looking Good”
There was a magazine
In the University Women’s Room
(A safe space for women)
That someone had defaced
By drawing hair on the models
Adding in eyebrow hairs
Underarm hairs
And sprouting pubic hairs
And I thought it was shocking
That someone would do that
Hair was Ugly. Inappropriate.
Distressing.
Let me say this
Because no one ever said it to me
In varying degrees of
Darkness, thickness, and density
Women. Have. Hair.
On our heads
On our legs, on our arms
On our hands
On our knuckles
On our feet
On our bellies
On our lower backs
On our nipples
On our pubic bone
In our underarms
On our upper lips
Sometimes even from the chin
And cheeks.
Women. Have. Hair.
It is not ugly.
It is convention, history, and the desire to control women’s bodies
And what happens in them and on them
That states that hair on women, in particular places, is ugly.
Hairiness does not make you less attractive
Hairiness does not make you a failure at life
Hairiness does not denote how feminine or masculine you are
It exists.
And it is a Woman’s. Personal. Choice.
Whether she wants to get rid of it or not.
Stubble on her legs
Does not make her manly.
Hair on her upper lip
Does not make her ugly, unfeminine, or unworthy
If your judgements on a human being
Go no further than the presence of hair
I ask you to please
Re-assess.
The world is full of far more important things
Worth pulling your hair out for
The end.
For an amazing story about dealing with hair, go here.
- Published on
the legal immigration system
When they say
The immigration system
Is broken
It needs fixing
I can tell you
First hand
It is a red hot
Stinking mess
Of hell
Like having the privilege
Of being with my love
Took eleven months
A few thousand dollars
Endless reams of paper
That repeated the
Same information
Over and over and
Over again
Name. Age. D.O.B. His Name. Age. D.O.B.
Parent’s names. Parent’s birthdays. Parent’s place of birth.
Copies of birth certificates, police certificates, medical certificates.
Every address I have lived at since I was sixteen
(I am currently residing in my 24th abode in 30 years. I hate that question.)
And once the system
Decided
In 2013
To make everything virtual
We had to re-submit
Every single form
From scratch.
At one point,
There were six different numbers
Assigned to my case
Now I am a code.
I am never asked for my name
Only my number
Because I am not
Luisa Lyons, Australian/Spanish citizen
I am a ten digit code with an
Alphabetized prefix.
And once I got to the USA
And arrived at the border
The immigration official
Had to go through every piece of paper
In my packet
Stamp it
And determine it was ok for me to go through
Once we were married
More paperwork
The same information
Over and over and
Over again
Name. Age. D.O.B. His Name. Age. D.O.B.
Parent’s names. Parent’s birthdays. Parent’s place of birth.
Copies of birth certificates, police certificates, medical certificates
Certified marriage certificate
Every address I have lived at since I was sixteen
Everything must be submitted in hard copy, most forms are filled in by hand
This is to “Adjust Immigrant Status”
And apply for “Employment Authorization”
More exorbitant fees
That ensure
You will never be able to speak to a human
Months of waiting
And zero communication
With the department
The system is broken
Because between us
My husband and I
Hold four university degrees
But my husband has to work his butt off
To keep us afloat
Because I’m not allowed to work
Either to contribute to the economy
Or to our household
I’m grateful I speak English
I’m proactive
I volunteer at a local bookshop
Am volunteering with a local theatre company
Writing my one-woman show
But
In a society whose primary currency is
Cash
I cannot thrive
I hate not being independent
I hate having to ask for financial help
When we have worked so damn hard.
I hate living in a system
That is so crushed by bureaucracy
And fear
That it is not able to function
The system is broken
And it’s breaking me down
Every time I have to call the
“Helpline”
To ask
Why haven’t we heard anything?
I’m tired of being a number
And waiting
The end.
The immigration system
Is broken
It needs fixing
I can tell you
First hand
It is a red hot
Stinking mess
Of hell
Like having the privilege
Of being with my love
Took eleven months
A few thousand dollars
Endless reams of paper
That repeated the
Same information
Over and over and
Over again
Name. Age. D.O.B. His Name. Age. D.O.B.
Parent’s names. Parent’s birthdays. Parent’s place of birth.
Copies of birth certificates, police certificates, medical certificates.
Every address I have lived at since I was sixteen
(I am currently residing in my 24th abode in 30 years. I hate that question.)
And once the system
Decided
In 2013
To make everything virtual
We had to re-submit
Every single form
From scratch.
At one point,
There were six different numbers
Assigned to my case
Now I am a code.
I am never asked for my name
Only my number
Because I am not
Luisa Lyons, Australian/Spanish citizen
I am a ten digit code with an
Alphabetized prefix.
And once I got to the USA
And arrived at the border
The immigration official
Had to go through every piece of paper
In my packet
Stamp it
And determine it was ok for me to go through
Once we were married
More paperwork
The same information
Over and over and
Over again
Name. Age. D.O.B. His Name. Age. D.O.B.
Parent’s names. Parent’s birthdays. Parent’s place of birth.
Copies of birth certificates, police certificates, medical certificates
Certified marriage certificate
Every address I have lived at since I was sixteen
Everything must be submitted in hard copy, most forms are filled in by hand
This is to “Adjust Immigrant Status”
And apply for “Employment Authorization”
More exorbitant fees
That ensure
You will never be able to speak to a human
Months of waiting
And zero communication
With the department
The system is broken
Because between us
My husband and I
Hold four university degrees
But my husband has to work his butt off
To keep us afloat
Because I’m not allowed to work
Either to contribute to the economy
Or to our household
I’m grateful I speak English
I’m proactive
I volunteer at a local bookshop
Am volunteering with a local theatre company
Writing my one-woman show
But
In a society whose primary currency is
Cash
I cannot thrive
I hate not being independent
I hate having to ask for financial help
When we have worked so damn hard.
I hate living in a system
That is so crushed by bureaucracy
And fear
That it is not able to function
The system is broken
And it’s breaking me down
Every time I have to call the
“Helpline”
To ask
Why haven’t we heard anything?
I’m tired of being a number
And waiting
The end.
- Published on
image from USA Today
Idina performed
Let It Go
Along with Jimmy Fallon and
The Roots
A completely different setting
To the Oscars
Surrounded by musicians
Relaxed
Casual
Playing classroom instruments
Everyone clearly
Having a total blast
For whatever reason
The instruments they're playing?
Vocal exhaustion?
(The woman has flown across country
Twice in as many days
Performed at an intensely hyped
Awards ceremony,
Her collaborators won a bunch of
Said awards
And she's in tech rehearsals
For a new Broadway show
That's gotta take some sort of toll)
The arrangement is down
A semitone from the original
And what a difference
A semitone makes!
Without the microphones
Flying cameras or
Hollywood elite
Staring up at her
You can hear the full power of
Idina's voice
The. Woman. Can. Belt.
And oh god, it's
Thrilling
The money note
It's just a D
Idina's got this
Let the storm rage OOOOOOON.
YES!
Nailed it.
Let It Go
Along with Jimmy Fallon and
The Roots
A completely different setting
To the Oscars
Surrounded by musicians
Relaxed
Casual
Playing classroom instruments
Everyone clearly
Having a total blast
For whatever reason
The instruments they're playing?
Vocal exhaustion?
(The woman has flown across country
Twice in as many days
Performed at an intensely hyped
Awards ceremony,
Her collaborators won a bunch of
Said awards
And she's in tech rehearsals
For a new Broadway show
That's gotta take some sort of toll)
The arrangement is down
A semitone from the original
And what a difference
A semitone makes!
Without the microphones
Flying cameras or
Hollywood elite
Staring up at her
You can hear the full power of
Idina's voice
The. Woman. Can. Belt.
And oh god, it's
Thrilling
The money note
It's just a D
Idina's got this
Let the storm rage OOOOOOON.
YES!
Nailed it.
- Published on
image from Billboard
Singing musical theatre
Is hard work
You are required to
Sing, act, and sometimes dance
All at the same time!
Belting
Sometimes referred to as
Controlled screaming
Requires technique.
Training. Breath.
Control of vocal chords
The diaphragm.
Being able to access
Every single body muscle
Whilst singing about
Love, loss, and dreams.
Movie musicals
Along with the Patti’s and Kristen’s and Bernadette’s
Have made it look effortless
And that’s the performer’s job
Right?
To make it look easy.
But the ease
Belies the effort it takes
To be. That. Good.
There is a theory
That belting changed
For women
With Lloyd-Webber’s
Evita
Before Evita, women were usually belting up to B’s and C’s
Think Don’t Rain on My Parade or Rose’s Turn or On My Own
Yes, the women could/can sing higher
But the money note sat right in a woman’s chest voice
Noboooody is gonna raaaaaaaain....
Etc.
Then Evita
And Patti. With a belt range from here to eternity
And the game changed.
Belts were written and sung up to E’s
Which sit higher in the voice
And now we have our Defying Gravity’s and Surabaya Santa’s and
Let It Go’s
And in the words of Jason Robert Brown,
Girls
Belting as hiiiiigh as they can.
Bette, Pink, and Idina
All performed iconic songs
At the Oscars last night
And in varying degrees,
Nailed it, hit it out of the ball park,
Or weren’t quite there.
Pink’s performance
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
The slightly husky voice
Capable of deliciously pleasing
Vocal gymnastics
The end of the first section
“Somewhere beyond the raaaain”
Rain, hitting the traditional money note
Bb
Satisfying to the ear
(And mighty satisfying to sing)
The chorus, one of the most well-known refrains,
Somewhere over the rainbow
Needs to be seamless
Smooth
The octave jump between
Some and where
One of those phrases that sounds easy
But try singing it
Without sliding
Keeping the where light
Remembering you’re singing about
Rainbows and dreams and lullabies...
Pop singing is less precise
Allows for riffing
And sliding between notes
And showing off.
Pop is about sound.
Musical theatre is about story-telling.
Pink sang
Someday I’ll wish upon a star
And wake up (breath) where the clouds are far
Be (breath) hiiiind me.
Twitter was ablaze
PHRASING!!!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!
MUSICAL THEATRE 101!
DON’T BREATHE IN THE MIDDLE OF A WORD!
And I’m certain no self-respecting music director
Conducting one of the most iconic songs of the
Twentieth century
Would have gone through rehearsal and said
“Those breaths in the middle are totally cool.
Good job”.
The song ended on a satisfying
Ab
Rich, resonant
The chords underneath creating movement
Resolve.
A lovely performance, but too breathy
For musical theatre. Even a pop rendition of musical theatre.
Perhaps it was nerves
Perhaps it was the
“Oh-god-I’m-singing-THE-song-at-the-OSCARS-in-front-of-LIZA-FREAKING-MINELLI” adrenalin
Sometimes nerves just grab you by the throat
And no amount of rehearsal
Meditation
“I’ve got this” vibes
Will be controlled
Once you’re on that stage
There is no going back
The show must go on.
Then the In Memoriam
Wind Beneath My Wings and
Bette. Oh Bette.
How to sing musical theatre 101.
She walks out, cool as a cucumber
Takes her place
And starts singing.
Her face radiates calm
She is in control
She is telling a story -
Dear friends who have departed
I am singing this for you.
A quick sneaky little mid-phrase breath -
You always walked a step (breath) behind -
But her face remains calm
It’s about the song. Not about her singing the song.
She connects with the audience
She connects with the words, the text,
Thank god for you
Vocally
She sang the song in a lower key
From the original
Riffed down rather than up
Never belted higher than a B
Came straight off the top notes
But it was all about connection
Control, calm and
Breath
Finally, THE. BIG. NUMBER.
The most written about
Played, covered, and parodied
Record-breaking Disney tune
Since Part of Your World,
Let It Go
Sung by Adela Mazim. Oh Revolta.
The musical theatre community may never forgive you...
(I’ve done it myself. Fraught with nerves
In a presentation
I kept referring to my co-presenter, and good friend,
As Ethey, instead of Ethel
I didn’t even realize what I’d been saying until afterwards
When everyone asked
WTF?!
It’s mortifying)
So Idina.
The beltress who is
Maureen. Elphaba. Queen Elsa
Emerged amidst
Sparkling Swarovski crystals
She looked tense
You could almost read her inner monologue
Stay connected. BREATHE. I. Got. This.
And it made us nervous to watch
Oh god, she’s gonna crack...
But the notes kept coming
Clear and strong
And while it’s a song she has sung
Many times over
Unlike Bette, it’s not standard repertoire, yet.
She’s not had years to perfect the performance of it
It wasn’t about story-telling
Or being an ice queen liberated from the strictures of a patriarchal society.
It was about BIG NOTES.
AND BELTING.
You could see the relief in her eyes
Every time she nailed a big note
It’s an awesome song
It speaks to us
It’s empowering
It’s gutsy,
It builds and swells,
And right to the last phrase,
I held my breath...
She might actually nail it?!
Let the storm rage....
That last money note,
A bitch of an Eb
OOOOOON...
Her voice cracked.
Dammit!
Too forcefully hit
Too much tension.
I pity the woman
Who’ll play Elsa on Broadway.
Eight times a week of
Let It Go is going to wreak some sort of damage.
In one night
Pink, Idina, and Bette, showed us that
Belting is hard work.
Even for highly regarded
Pop stars and Broadway veterans known
For their belting prowess
(Except for Patti. Nothing seems hard for Patti. Watch this and you’ll understand what I mean).
Somewhere beyond the excitement
Of the big belt
Perhaps we need to return
To story-telling
Where the music serves the story
Rather than “controlled screams”
Of terrifying heights
Dominating our minds and vocal chords
And for the belt
Learn to
Let it go
Read about Idina Menzel's completely different performance the next day!
Is hard work
You are required to
Sing, act, and sometimes dance
All at the same time!
Belting
Sometimes referred to as
Controlled screaming
Requires technique.
Training. Breath.
Control of vocal chords
The diaphragm.
Being able to access
Every single body muscle
Whilst singing about
Love, loss, and dreams.
Movie musicals
Along with the Patti’s and Kristen’s and Bernadette’s
Have made it look effortless
And that’s the performer’s job
Right?
To make it look easy.
But the ease
Belies the effort it takes
To be. That. Good.
There is a theory
That belting changed
For women
With Lloyd-Webber’s
Evita
Before Evita, women were usually belting up to B’s and C’s
Think Don’t Rain on My Parade or Rose’s Turn or On My Own
Yes, the women could/can sing higher
But the money note sat right in a woman’s chest voice
Noboooody is gonna raaaaaaaain....
Etc.
Then Evita
And Patti. With a belt range from here to eternity
And the game changed.
Belts were written and sung up to E’s
Which sit higher in the voice
And now we have our Defying Gravity’s and Surabaya Santa’s and
Let It Go’s
And in the words of Jason Robert Brown,
Girls
Belting as hiiiiigh as they can.
Bette, Pink, and Idina
All performed iconic songs
At the Oscars last night
And in varying degrees,
Nailed it, hit it out of the ball park,
Or weren’t quite there.
Pink’s performance
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
The slightly husky voice
Capable of deliciously pleasing
Vocal gymnastics
The end of the first section
“Somewhere beyond the raaaain”
Rain, hitting the traditional money note
Bb
Satisfying to the ear
(And mighty satisfying to sing)
The chorus, one of the most well-known refrains,
Somewhere over the rainbow
Needs to be seamless
Smooth
The octave jump between
Some and where
One of those phrases that sounds easy
But try singing it
Without sliding
Keeping the where light
Remembering you’re singing about
Rainbows and dreams and lullabies...
Pop singing is less precise
Allows for riffing
And sliding between notes
And showing off.
Pop is about sound.
Musical theatre is about story-telling.
Pink sang
Someday I’ll wish upon a star
And wake up (breath) where the clouds are far
Be (breath) hiiiind me.
Twitter was ablaze
PHRASING!!!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!
MUSICAL THEATRE 101!
DON’T BREATHE IN THE MIDDLE OF A WORD!
And I’m certain no self-respecting music director
Conducting one of the most iconic songs of the
Twentieth century
Would have gone through rehearsal and said
“Those breaths in the middle are totally cool.
Good job”.
The song ended on a satisfying
Ab
Rich, resonant
The chords underneath creating movement
Resolve.
A lovely performance, but too breathy
For musical theatre. Even a pop rendition of musical theatre.
Perhaps it was nerves
Perhaps it was the
“Oh-god-I’m-singing-THE-song-at-the-OSCARS-in-front-of-LIZA-FREAKING-MINELLI” adrenalin
Sometimes nerves just grab you by the throat
And no amount of rehearsal
Meditation
“I’ve got this” vibes
Will be controlled
Once you’re on that stage
There is no going back
The show must go on.
Then the In Memoriam
Wind Beneath My Wings and
Bette. Oh Bette.
How to sing musical theatre 101.
She walks out, cool as a cucumber
Takes her place
And starts singing.
Her face radiates calm
She is in control
She is telling a story -
Dear friends who have departed
I am singing this for you.
A quick sneaky little mid-phrase breath -
You always walked a step (breath) behind -
But her face remains calm
It’s about the song. Not about her singing the song.
She connects with the audience
She connects with the words, the text,
Thank god for you
Vocally
She sang the song in a lower key
From the original
Riffed down rather than up
Never belted higher than a B
Came straight off the top notes
But it was all about connection
Control, calm and
Breath
Finally, THE. BIG. NUMBER.
The most written about
Played, covered, and parodied
Record-breaking Disney tune
Since Part of Your World,
Let It Go
Sung by Adela Mazim. Oh Revolta.
The musical theatre community may never forgive you...
(I’ve done it myself. Fraught with nerves
In a presentation
I kept referring to my co-presenter, and good friend,
As Ethey, instead of Ethel
I didn’t even realize what I’d been saying until afterwards
When everyone asked
WTF?!
It’s mortifying)
So Idina.
The beltress who is
Maureen. Elphaba. Queen Elsa
Emerged amidst
Sparkling Swarovski crystals
She looked tense
You could almost read her inner monologue
Stay connected. BREATHE. I. Got. This.
And it made us nervous to watch
Oh god, she’s gonna crack...
But the notes kept coming
Clear and strong
And while it’s a song she has sung
Many times over
Unlike Bette, it’s not standard repertoire, yet.
She’s not had years to perfect the performance of it
It wasn’t about story-telling
Or being an ice queen liberated from the strictures of a patriarchal society.
It was about BIG NOTES.
AND BELTING.
You could see the relief in her eyes
Every time she nailed a big note
It’s an awesome song
It speaks to us
It’s empowering
It’s gutsy,
It builds and swells,
And right to the last phrase,
I held my breath...
She might actually nail it?!
Let the storm rage....
That last money note,
A bitch of an Eb
OOOOOON...
Her voice cracked.
Dammit!
Too forcefully hit
Too much tension.
I pity the woman
Who’ll play Elsa on Broadway.
Eight times a week of
Let It Go is going to wreak some sort of damage.
In one night
Pink, Idina, and Bette, showed us that
Belting is hard work.
Even for highly regarded
Pop stars and Broadway veterans known
For their belting prowess
(Except for Patti. Nothing seems hard for Patti. Watch this and you’ll understand what I mean).
Somewhere beyond the excitement
Of the big belt
Perhaps we need to return
To story-telling
Where the music serves the story
Rather than “controlled screams”
Of terrifying heights
Dominating our minds and vocal chords
And for the belt
Learn to
Let it go
Read about Idina Menzel's completely different performance the next day!
- Published on
"Stitch 'n bitch"
When a group of people,
Usually women,
Get together
Eat and drink
And knit and sew and
Work on crafty projects
It was lovely to watch
Women working on
Patchwork quilts
And curtains
And bags
Made from pretty fabrics
How delightful to participate
For one afternoon
In this world
Of feeding and project making
The whir and rattle of
Sewing machines
The chatter of women
And new mothers
Their three tiny babies
Hanging out in basinets
Or on blankets on the floor
The eldest of the three
Six months old
Reveling in her newly acquired skill of
Rolling Over
You can almost see joy in her face
When gravity, and a little effort,
Changes her view of the world
Yet understanding with complete clarity
This is not my world
I have no desire to be a mother
To cradle
And rock a little one to sleep
To discuss feeding habits
Or diaper changes
Or what foods to eat to produce more breast milk
Or where to seek useful information
On all of the above
Colouring a mandala
And knowing
All of our stories, choices, and worlds
Are different
And that we all contribute to the vast
Patchwork of life
With our own forms of creation
The end.
When a group of people,
Usually women,
Get together
Eat and drink
And knit and sew and
Work on crafty projects
It was lovely to watch
Women working on
Patchwork quilts
And curtains
And bags
Made from pretty fabrics
How delightful to participate
For one afternoon
In this world
Of feeding and project making
The whir and rattle of
Sewing machines
The chatter of women
And new mothers
Their three tiny babies
Hanging out in basinets
Or on blankets on the floor
The eldest of the three
Six months old
Reveling in her newly acquired skill of
Rolling Over
You can almost see joy in her face
When gravity, and a little effort,
Changes her view of the world
Yet understanding with complete clarity
This is not my world
I have no desire to be a mother
To cradle
And rock a little one to sleep
To discuss feeding habits
Or diaper changes
Or what foods to eat to produce more breast milk
Or where to seek useful information
On all of the above
Colouring a mandala
And knowing
All of our stories, choices, and worlds
Are different
And that we all contribute to the vast
Patchwork of life
With our own forms of creation
The end.